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Mission as the Emerging Entry Point for New People

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mwkruse
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Lewis Center Update: Mission as the Emerging Entry Point for New People

It is intriguing that the first connection people have with a congregation tends to change from time to time. …

… We may be on the verge of another change, in which the entry point to a congregation for more and more people is through service and mission. This seems especially true for the young. For many young people, inviting their friends who don't attend church to "come to my church" may not be the most comfortable invitation to make or the one most likely to receive a positive response. On the other hand, few young people would be reluctant to invite any of their friends to join them for a service project sponsored by the church, and few young people will turn down such an invitation. The sense of commitment to help others among young adults is as strong as their excitement about most churches is weak.

It is too early to know if mission as an entry point to church will take hold in the way that Sunday School and worship did in prior times. But we do know that for increasing numbers of persons with a passion to serve and some disillusionment with the church, mission may be their most likely entry point – if churches are actually serving others and including new people in such service. We also know that, in this time when "belonging leads to believing," it is often only after a person comes to trust a community and to feel accepted by that community that there is much interest in what the community believes.

I've sensed this shift for quite some time, and I confess it leaves me conflicted. That people what to engage in service is good, but creating service projects as an attractional tool is problematic. It can easily become another form of consumerism (ironically championed most vigorously by those who decry it most.) People end up "shopping" for experiences, and congregations "compete" to offer the best service experiences. This differs from service flowing organically from the shared community of disciples following Jesus. The act of service becomes more about those who are allegedly serving than those allegedly being served.

Comments

4 responses to “Mission as the Emerging Entry Point for New People”

  1. JMorrow Avatar
    JMorrow

    I too have seen this trend for awhile and in some ways I’m encouraged by it. While you rightly point out its not an “attractional” solution, we underestimate how many people are alienated by our emphasis on Sunday worship. For awhile now, I’ve come to believe we put way too much emphasis on what happens every Sunday (whether its worship, teaching, meetings, etc.). We need to instead focus on building communities that live beyond Sunday. There is no reason of course, why we can’t transform, as congregations, the notion of what mission and service are, so as not to just simply parody what any able non-profit can do. There is room for worship, teaching and deep fellowship around mission service. I’ve seen it. It just requires stretching our God-given imagination.
    It’s also worth noting that mission service tends to be a first point of contact for individuals dealing with cultural diversity as well. Usually the people being served come from different economic, social or ethnic backgrounds. Thus there is great potential to for mission to be a place of encounter where we meet people where they are.
    Worship as entertainment to my mind is more of a widespread concern than mission as consumerism. I’ve seen congregations break the bank just to go after the golden goose of a new sound system. All the while, the neglect the activities through mission that would bring them into direct contact with their neighbors.

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  2. Michael W. Kruse Avatar
    Michael W. Kruse

    He says that in past eras, people came through Sunday School and then worship. But I would ask what prompted that first visit. In either case, it was overwhelmingly because someone the visitor knew was hyped about the church and invited them, or they had connections with the church through family and friends that already attended there. It always has been, and still is, highly relational.
    Joseph Pine, who coined the term “mass customization” a generation ago, sees a new focus in post-industrial economies. Human beings used to survive by growing things or pulling things out of the ground, and then exchanging them. With the industrial revolution, the focused shifted to the goods that good be formed out of the things we grow and pull out of the ground. Eventually, these goods became commodities and what people shopped for was the service that could be provided in addition to the commodity. Now services are becoming commodities. What we shop for now is the experience we get out of something.
    What this has meant is an increase in the number of people who volunteer while nonprofits find it increasingly difficult to sustain volunteer relationships for more than a few months. Volunteers get bored and then are off shopping for the next experience.
    I’m not suggesting that we return to Sunday School and worship as attractional tools. Rather I’m suggesting that whatever we are offering better be an authentic outgrowth of who we are as a community.
    Springing up service programs just to attract people can end up with perverse results like a school in Costa Rica being painted six times in one summer by different service times or taking a turkey in person to a poor family at Thanksgiving, humiliating the father before his children as an inept provider. Service is about the ones being served, not the servers.
    Service needs to spring up out of an authentic community response to genuine need. Too many times I suspect churches are just offering the latest in religiosity goods to attract members.

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  3. Chuck Avatar
    Chuck

    Michael,
    I would add one more motive to your last statement…that we offer the latest in religious goods to make members feel good about how they are serving – “Look at all that God is doing here!”
    The Bible Church that I attend only recently discovered service to the community and since that time a plethora of hard sell opportunities have been offered to the congregation. All of this is so that we can “make an impact.” All well and good, but I have also recently noticed an increasing number of members who are seeming to feel really good about themselves and their new-found service to the poor, elderly, etc.
    Seems to me that this is the pitfall of programmed service as opposed to service that springs from a church community’s DNA.
    Peace.

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  4. JMorrow Avatar
    JMorrow

    Michael,
    I’d add an “Amen” on not replicating poor models of service. I think attitude and theological perspective are key in not letting that happen. A congregation should never engage in mission just because it feels like this is a good idea, or that it will win members and dollars. The missions Jesus sent the first disciples out on rarely seemed like a “good idea” by conventional standards, and certainly took time to reap the kinds of material dividends we identify with those quantitative metrics.
    However, I think a congregation should engage in mission service because it is part of the calling that Jesus has placed over us as a Church. That call will sometimes stretch us to grow in areas we are currently uncomfortable with. To my mind, that is potential benefit of this increasing awareness of mission service as entry point to the worshiping community.
    What is in our DNA, or springs organically from us, as Christians is not necessarily the same as that which comes from us as individuals. My hunch is we assume as congregations things about our generosity and desire for community that don’t always hold up upon evidence and experience. So sometimes we need to take on the heart of Jesus when our own hearts are insufficiently hardened to God’s call.
    Organic growth will occasionally require stimuli and catalysts that push against our own organization inertia. It’s true that spiritual and numerical growth in a congregation is rooted in relationships. But I have to be honest that I’d have much more success bringing people in my networks to a mission service opportunity crafted prayerfully, with worshipful moments and done in a learning posture, than to a worship event where social and theological barriers tend to intimidate. But only when we learn why and how worship can become entertainment and product, can we then prevent our other ministries from becoming the same.

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